The raunchy, blue-collar characters in Donald Ray Pollock's debut story collection, Knockemstiff, specialize in messing up. They mess up their own lives and the lives of the people around them.

The going gets weird in Knockemstiff, Ohio Steve Bennett San Antonio Express-News ‘Knockemstiff,” Donald Ray Pollock’s debut story collection, should come with a surgeon general’s warning.

Donald Ray Pollock worked for 32 years at a paper mill not far from the Ohio town of Knockemstiff. His story collection, which borrows the town's name for its title, is startling, bleak ...

To say author Donald Ray Pollock's first book, Knockemstiff, is "gritty" is like calling Antarctica chilly. In Knockemstiff — named for the southern Ohio town where Pollock grew up ...

Like the smog from the local paper mill that "made everything smell like rotten eggs," despair hangs over Knockemstiff. Its residents seem resigned to the smell and to their sense that they are ...

You've got to understand, my mother hadn't been out of Knockemstiff all summer. Just seeing a couple of red lights had made her all goosey. But every time she gagged on that wiener, the ropy ...

The characters in Knockemstiff are nasty and violent little slaves to ego. They huff Bactine and get into ill-advised fights and fuck like animals when the mood strikes them. It's surprising ...

To say author Donald Ray Pollock's first book, Knockemstiff, is "gritty" is like calling Antarctica chilly. In Knockemstiff — named for the southern Ohio town where Pollock grew up ...